12/22/10

Greg Sargent writes, "So this afternoon, the Senate voted to ratify New START after months of partisan wrangling and passed the bill giving health benefits to 9/11 heroes after, well, years of partisan wrangling. This, on the same day that Obama signed the repeal of don't ask don't tell, a civil rights milestone. All in all, a pretty productive day."

Yup, light a fire under Democrats and they can roll right over Republicans and get things done.

Makes you wonder why Senate Democrats have been sitting around with their thumbs up their asses for two years, waiting for GOP permission to work. Yeah, all those attempts at bipartisanship really paid off, didn't they guys?

It's just like I pointed out this morning; putting bipartisanship above all breeds stupidity. You dick around for months trying to put together a bad compromise, fail, then wind up passing a weak bill by a largely partisan vote. The it's on to the next issue, where you dick around for months trying to put together a bad compromise, fail, then wind up passing a weak bill by a largely partisan vote. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But when the chips are down and there's no time to go on a pointless snipe hunt for bipartisan agreement, major pieces of legislation are passed in days. If this had been the way they'd operated all along, Democrats might not have gotten their asses kicked in November.

It's a lesson that comes too late for the current crop of Senate Democrats and you wish it wouldn't be lost on the next. But, of course, they won't learn it either. Democrats seem stuck in a fatal pattern -- good on policy, idiots about strategy.

The next time a Democrat talks to you about how important bipartisan agreements are, just go ahead and smack them with a rolled up newspaper -- it's the only way they'll never learn. (Plum Line)